Understanding Globalization: Historical Roots of Economic, Political and Cultural Exchanges between East Asia, America and Europe

This is a course that introduces students to the history of the globalization process from 1500s to the 1900s within the framework of the World history. These centuries were marked by an extensive and fruitful exchange between Europe, East Asia and European colonies in Latin America, a global encounter that was political (diplomatic relationships), cultural (ideas and concepts) and material (products and silver) alike. This resulted in a dynamic Eurasian dialogue. On one hand, Asian societies used a certain strategy of inclusion and exclusion of European influences in order to stabilize an equal partnership on a long-term basis. On the other hand, the others first fascinated Europeans but it was only a step further to adopt a pragmatic search for riches. This course seeks to examine the interactions between these regions from an interdisciplinary perspective and aspires to be a rich and understandable explanation of more than three hundred years of globalization.